Read what’s in the news today.

Society

-- Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications has set up a center for national Internet space monitoring, which helped reduce the rate of negative news online to 10 percent from 30 percent, the ministry’s head Nguyen Manh Hung said at the ongoing 36th session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Thursday.

-- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday signed agreements for the Second Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Tourism Infrastructure for Inclusive Growth Project with the provincial administrations of five Vietnamese provinces, namely Hoa Binh, Nghe An, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien - Hue. 

-- A tour guide of a travel agency that holds adventure rock climbing at Marble Mountains (Ngu Hanh Son), a famed attraction in the central city of Da Nang, has been suspended from work at the spot after he spat on a tourist earlier this week, the tourism area management said Thursday.

-- Pham Van Khuong, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, fell from the 27th floor of the Vinaconex apartment building in the Vietnamese capital on Thursday, his superior confirmed later the same day. A source said Khuong died following the incident, while the cause of death remained unknown.

-- A pine forest in the central province of Thua Thien - Hue caught fire on Thursday, apparently due to local residents’ burning votive papers.

Business

-- Export prices of rice from Vietnam fell this week as the country struggled to find new buyers amid waning demand from China, Reuters reported on Thursday.

-- Vietjet is offering millions of best price tickets from VND2,020 apiece during the whole golden week from August 15 to 22 in celebration of the spring travel season 2020, the low-cost carrier announced Thursday.

-- Vietnamese post and telecommunication giant VNPT on Thursday inaugurated a plant that produces glass fiber for optical communications in the northern province of Bac Ninh, marking Vietnam as the first Southeast Asian country capable of making this kind of material.

Sports

-- Hosts Vietnam lost 1-2 to Cambodia during their second group stage game of the AFF U-19 Youth Championship on Thursday, resulting in their elimination from the Southeast Asian competition and the resignation of their head coach Hoang Anh Tuan.

-- The tank team of the Vietnam People’s Army on Thursday finished second in the final round of Group 2 of the “Tank biathlon” event at the ongoing Army Games 2019 in Russia.

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